Back when I started running a 4th Edition D&D campaign, the one thing I always lamented as being absent was a decent way to randomly generate sweet, sweet loot for my players to encounter. Then along came the Essentials Dungeon Master Guide, and in the back of it on page 248 was a beautiful little chart titled “Treasure by Party Level”. My prayers were answered, and now I use that chart to fill out my adventure planning.

As a refresher on how to use the chart if you haven’t used it recently or before, you roll 1d20 once for each reward type. The table assumes a 5-person party, so if you have a different party size, subtract 2 for each person under 5 and add 2 for each person over 5. If you roll a 20 on any field, always take the best result regardless of the party size modifier. Personally, I also modify gold rewards by d%, but that’s because I find round amounts of gold a bit silly.

I’ve transcribed the chart to a Google Document at http://bit.ly/zf1S48 for your pleasure. (There’s two sheets on this document: the first one should be readable on your monitor, the second is larger and should print to exactly one full page.) If you enjoy it, consider picking up the Essentials Dungeon Master’s Kit. The smaller form factor book is easy to carry around, and its comes with other useful tools and tokens.

Lastly, I cannot post one useful chart without referencing what many of us agree to be the penultimate Useful 4th Ed Chart: Sly Flourish’s Master DM Cheat Sheet. It contains standard DCs, damages, defenses, HPs and attack rolls for every level and is invaluable for those of us who make on-the-fly decisions in the game. You can access the PDF at Sly’s website at http://slyflourish.com by selecting “dm cheat sheet” from the right side column.